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The new story is HERE! A Real Life Lesbian Adventure!

Pre-Stonewall San Antonio 1961-1963, Cheers, Everybody! Is the new story in the True Life Lesbian Adventure Series by Carolyn Weathers. Carolyn and her sister Brenda were out lesbians in the 60's in Texas before they moved West. Their lives were always adventurous and often fearless. Click here to read the latest lesbian adventure!!!
www.mazerlesbianarchives.org

Ann Bannon Discusses Beebo Brinker Chronicles

Click here to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr94NqfghK4&feature=related

Mazer Archives OPEN HOUSE Sunday, December 7, 2008 from 3-5PM

Please JOIN US for

Great friends & Good food!

Poetry Readings by:

Eloise Klein Healy
Ching-In Chen
Griselda Suarez


Eloise Klein Healy is the author of six books of poetry and three spoken word recordings. She was the founding chair of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles where she is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing Emerita. Healy directed the Women's Studies Program at California State University Northridge and taught in the Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman's Building in Los Angeles. She is Poet-in-Residence at the Idyllwild Summer Poetry Festival, the co-founder of ECO-ARTS, an eco-tourism/arts venture, and founding editor of ARKTOI BOOKS, an imprint of Red Hen Press. Her latest collection of poems is The Islands Project: Poems For Sappho.

Ching-In Chen is the daughter of immigrants and a proud Kundiman Asian American Poet Fellow. Past occupations include karaoke singer, flautist, 1st grade literacy teacher, community organizer, construction job counselor, and a severely lost person in the Rocky Mountains. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in CRATE, Tea Party, Fifth Wednesday Journal, OCHO and Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves. Currently, she is in the MFA Program at the University of California at Riverside. Her first collection of poems, The Heart's Traffic, will be published by Arktoi Books in February 2009. The Heart's Traffic is a series of connected poems about the adventures of Xiaomei, a girl who slowly discovers her own gifts through her ability to shape stories.

Griselda Suarez currently teaches writing and literature at Cal State Long Beach University in the Chicano/Latino Studies Department. She lives with her wife of 3 years, or depending how you count, 10 in lesbian years. She was born in unincorporated East Los Angeles. She currently co-facilitates Café Cultura, an event that celebrates Latino art, music and performance. She was recently published in Sinister Wisdom Journal: Latina Lesbian poets and Acentos Literary Review. Her poetry chapbook, Concrete River Boulevard, published by Finishing Line Press will be available early next year. To keep her inspired, Griselda enjoys meditating over warm suds and dirty dishes. And if timing is right, you can catch her reenacting her Quinceañera and reading books on how to become a Mexican calendar girl.

Join us this Sunday October 2nd from 3-5pm for this film and discussion!

IRON JAWED ANGELS
recounts for a contemporary audience a key chapter in U.S. history: in this case, the struggle of suffragists who fought for the passage of the 19th Amendment. Focusing on the two defiant women, Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O'Connor), the film shows how these activists broke from the mainstream women's-rights movement and created a more radical wing, daring to push the boundaries of political protest to secure women's voting rights in 1920.
This is an all access event downstairs!

MAZER OPEN HOUSE MOVES TO DECEMBER

We have decided to move the date of our annual open house to December because of all the weddings and the crucial upcomming election.
Check back for details of our November event on November 2, 2008!

Sunday October 5th @ 3pm

The Mazer Lesbian Archives presents
a history of women in Roller Derby with filmmakers Donna Cassyd and Leslie Sloan. They will be showing their film "HIGH HEELS ON WHEELS" and they will be on hand to answer any questions you may have about the making of this short film.

Lesbian Profile: Victoria Shannon

At nine years of age, I knew I was not like other girls. Since it was the 1950s, there was nowhere to find representations of others like me, so I plodded along like millions of other gays and lesbians, trying to figure out where I fit into a cruelly homophobic society. I was beaten up on a regular basis in grade school because I had acquired my grandmother’s Irish brogue, so it isn’t surprising that an unhappy kid turned to books for comfort and, slowly, in some of those books, I began to find thinly veiled references to something called “homosexuality.” By high school, the light of self-recognition went on for me and, unfortunately, my “differences” became recognizable to my classmates and I was soon walking the emotional plank of trying to keep a secret that others obviously had already figured out. In short, I was gay-bashed out of high school at age 15 and, soon after, I left Benton Harbor and moved to St. Louis to stay with some friends of an uncle. These people were cosmopolitan, and they knew many gays and lesbians. Soon, I was a regular in the gay bars in St. Louis, even though I was grossly underage, and I came out under the watchful eyes of some older, good friends who did their best to keep me out of trouble.

My grandmother who raised me, died when I was seventeen. When I was back in Benton Harbor for her funeral, I was outed to my family by another uncle. My mother immediately blamed everyone and everything. I took the hint and hustled back to St. Louis as soon as I could get a bus ticket. (When I was forty, I finally severed all ties with my biological family because, no matter what I did with my life, nothing changed the fact that I was a queer.)

When I was eighteen, I returned to Benton Harbor to care for my grandfather who was suffering from a serious illness. I stayed there until I was twenty-one when I met a woman who lived in Indiana. I moved in with her, and we stayed together for five years. While living in Indiana, I decided to get a GED (high school equivalency), and I started attending Indiana University Northwest. I declared history as my major because my love of reading had led me to historical fiction and biographies of famous women. I loved being back in school, but my desire to educate myself threatened my lover, and we were soon experiencing tension in our relationship. I was working in Chicago in a library with a dozen well educated, liberal-minded women from all over the world who encouraged me to pursue a degree, and I delighted in their interest and attention.

One day, in 1977, as I was walking past the reading room in the library where I worked, I saw a dark-haired woman standing with one foot on a chair reading a book. I stopped dead in my tracks. As soon as she looked at me, I knew I was in for it. It was love at first sight, something I would have, until that moment, vehemently claimed didn’t exist. I broke up with my Indiana girlfriend, moved to Chicago to be with love-at-first-sight, and enrolled in DePaul University where I have been ever since, both as a student and as a faculty member. I also fell in love with Chicago, so when our relationship ended five years later, I didn’t think of moving anywhere else.

It took me seven years to earn a B.A. at DePaul. Because I had to work full-time, I always attended school part-time. In 1982, the high school drop-out finally walked across a stage and became the first person in her family to obtain a college degree. By this time, my relationship with love-at-first-sight had ended, and I remained a single playgirl for years after that, living alone and concentrating on accumulating degrees and working dead-end jobs to pay the bills. In 1986, my mentor at DePaul more or less ordered me to teach a two credit hour research class and, at the end of the first class, I had experienced an epiphany: I was meant to be a teacher!

In 1991, I started teaching at Columbia College because, as anyone who has ever taught part-time knows, one teaching job is not enough to pay the bills. At that time, Columbia had, to my knowledge, one GLBT-related course, Gay and Lesbian Literature. The class had not been taught in two years, and, in 1993, some gay and lesbian students I had gotten to know approached me to ask if I could get the course back into the curriculum. I asked the chair of the English Department who offered me the course for the next semester. That class was the beginning of my work on behalf of GLBT students at Columbia. I became the faculty advisor to the GLBT student organization in 1995. In 2001, I applied for a curriculum grant to develop a course called “Gay and Lesbian Studies” that became part of the curriculum in the Liberal Education Department. Later that year, I approached the Vice President of Student Affairs and asked why Columbia didn’t have an Office of Gay and Lesbian Student Concerns. He thought it was a good question, and the following semester I was appointed Coordinator of the new Office of Gay and Lesbian Student Concerns. For two years, I worked to establish Columbia’s reputation as a welcoming school for GLBT students by organizing special events, speaker panels, and health fairs. I brought HIV testing to Columbia for the first time. By the time I left the coordinator position in 2003, Columbia was serving its GLBT students in ways that hadn’t happened before.

It soon became clear that one section of “Gay and Lesbian Studies” wasn’t enough because the class filled almost as soon as it was made available, so soon I was teaching two sections, then three. I developed a GLBT history course, and convinced the chair of Liberal Education that the original “Gay and Lesbian Studies” course needed to be split into two parts; that happened in spring, 2008. I recently developed a GLBT Psychology course, and I am currently working on a Global Sexualities course. I was instrumental in hiring an instructor to teach Gay and Lesbian Studies, and she recently developed a new Queer Theory course for the department. My chair, Dr. Lisa Brock, has been extremely supportive of my curriculum efforts, and she has stated that we are going to develop a “cluster” of GLBT classes so that we can eventually offer students a certificate in Gay and Lesbian Studies. She also recently stated that she was thinking of creating a permanent position for me so that I can continue my work on behalf of Columbia’s GLBT students. The new position would be the Coordinator of GLBT Curriculum.

Columbia College is an arts and communication college with a current enrollment of over 12,000 students. The usual 10% estimate would mean that we have 1200 GLBT students, but at Columbia we have many more than that. GLBT people are attracted to artistic professions, and we owe it to these students to provide them with courses they are clamoring to take because they can finally experience validation of who they are in a safe space where their opinions are valued and their passions can be directed towards areas that truly interest them.

I think back to those desperate days when I searched for books with gay and lesbian characters in them, when I studied the faces of adults to see if I recognized a kindred spirit, when I suffered in silence thinking I was the only person who desired same-sex relationships. Later, throughout a very long stint in college, I never once had a teacher discuss gay and lesbian issues. Not until I was taking doctoral-level courses did the lives of gays and lesbians enter class discussions. By that time, I was thoroughly focused on gay and lesbian issues, and nearly every assignment I completed was in that area. It is unacceptable now for GLBT students to not see themselves in a college’s curriculum. I am working to help others bring GLBT issues into their classes, and I am working to create more GLBT-related classes.

The year after I started teaching at Columbia I met my life partner, Mary. We will celebrate our 16th anniversary this coming November. No one has been more supportive of my efforts to help GLBT students, and I am truly grateful for her encouragement over the years. She also recognizes that GLBT young people need strong, positive role models, and she thinks that the work I do makes me one of those role models. I’ve recently been asked to speak at the semester welcoming luncheon for Common Ground, Columbia’s GLBT student organization. The theme is coming out because the luncheon will take place on October 10, the day before National Coming Out Day. I intend to use that opportunity to congratulate the college for its support of GLBT students, but I also intend to mention that there is much, much more to be done.

Mary and I live in a quiet neighborhood in Chicago with our two dogs, Stonewall and McKenna, and several cats. We have a tight-knit circle of friends, most of whom are heterosexual couples, but we also have four surrogate, grown lesbian daughters who bring us much joy. I spend a lot of time gardening, playing with my dogs, cooking, and reading and writing. This summer I wrote eleven articles for glbtq.com
I chose to write about Jodi Foster, David Sedaris, Kevin Jennings, Larry Levan, Mel White, Richard Rodriguez, and Neil Miller because I admire and respect each of them. The last article I wrote for the site is still in the revision stage, but it is called “Gay and Lesbian Teachers,” a subject that is obviously dear to my heart.

In Memory of Del Martin

Del Martin dies at 87.
Del Martin was one of a few founders of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB)which also included her surviving wife of over 50 years Pyhllis Lyon in 1955. They were both early publishers of The Ladder and great activists in many other ways. We owe Del so much. She was a pioneer in every sense of the word. She will be greatly missed.

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin on Youtube

Just click the link below to view this wonderful couple talking at the San Francisco GLBT Historical Society

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEsluZvBm84

Join us in September for The West Hollywood Book Fair!

Come visit us at the Mazer table at The West Hollywood Book Fair.


Experience eclectic literary LA with over 25,000 fellow readers and writers at the 7th Annual West Hollywood Book Fair on Sunday, September 28 from 10am to 6pm at West Hollywood Park (647 N. San Vicente Blvd.). Author panels, poetry readings, storytelling, theatrical performances, kids' theater & more on 12 stages! Exhibitors selling books and hosting activities.

FREE admission, parking & shuttle service. For more info click the link below:
www.westhollywoodbookfair.org

The Mazer Lesbian Archives at Serafemme!

Serafemme- Queer Women of Color Music Festival, August 17, 2008 in West Hollywood Park @ 647 N. San Vicente Blvd. 2-8PM

http://www.serafemme.com/

Check out OLOC

For more information about Old Lesbians Organizing for Change
Click on this link below:
http://www.oloc.org/index.php

"Kissing in Casts" by Carolyn Weathers

WHAT? Is that a cast on her arm? Is that a cast on her leg??? It is just another gem in the True Life Lesbian Adventure series we have on The Mazer Lesbian Archives web site. Click here to read the latest story! www.mazerlesbianarchives.org

Memorial for Jo Duffy Sunday July 20th @ 2pm

Memorial For Jo Duffy

Please join the Board of the June Mazer Lesbian Archives as we celebrate Jo Duffy's contributions to the Lesbian Community as our longest and oldest volunteer. Although Jo was camera shy we have found a video that shows her at her best!

Date: July,20 2008
Time: 2PM
Place 626 North Robertson (the down stairs all access space)

We will begin with the video, followed by stories from our collective memory, a special dedication to Jo and light refreshments. It's amazing how one self-effacing woman has done so much to preserve our history. Please join us!

JO DUFFY 1926-2008

“I’m home”

So said Jo Duffy when she first entered the doors of the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives.
That was 1991

Initially, Jo worked with the periodicals, but soon became the “Queen” of the subject files at the Mazer Archives. She knew the subject and periodical files so well that researchers from all over the world were able to find information necessary for their research and often this data could be found nowhere else. Additionally, Jo was our primary contact with the City of West Hollywood.

Jo took the bus over the hill from the San Fernando Valley and was regularly at the Mazer Archives Tuesdays and Thursdays to meet the public and process materials. No one could have been more dedicated. She kept the Mazer alive.

A Story About Jo
In the past, downstairs from the Mazer, was an alternative school for LGBT teens. Those young people would periodically have a “field trip” upstairs to the Mazer Archives where Jo would be their teacher and mentor. Over time, the students and Jo formed a relationship. Each Tuesday or Thursday as Jo got on the bus for her ride home, the students, with their tattoos and typical teen dress, would rush over to her and say, “Hi Jo!” and give her hugs. They loved and respected her, as we all did. She altered lives.

Jo truly believed in the importance of saving our Lesbian history and committed herself to that end. She had a presence and force not to be replicated. Those who worked with her remember her passion, sense of humor and her LAUGH.

Jo! You are in our hearts and are missed by all of us here at the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives. The Archives have survived because of YOU, your warmth, your knowledge and your love of who we are in this world.

Lesbian Photo Exhibit a Big Success!

UPDATE: Photographers from left to right: Jenny Wrenn, Karen Schmidt, Danna Kinsky and Laura Aguilar talk about their perspectives, lives and work as well as answer questions from the audience.
The all lesbian photographer's exhibit was a big success with about seventy in attendance!
The Mazer Lesbian Archives would like to thank all of you who made this the big success it was by coming out to see the gallery and participating in the panel discussion. We would also like to express our appreciation to the photographers who donated their time and amazing work to this exhibit. Thank you Laura Aguilar, Denise Crippen Andersen, Jenny Wrenn, Karen Schmidt, Danna Kinsky, Cathy Cade and Pat Gargaetas! Thanks to Carolyn Weathers and a big thanks again to the City Of West Hollywood!


SUNDAY, July 6th
Lesbian Photographer Exhibit
The Mazer Lesbian Archives


Thanks to the support of The City of West Hollywood, The Mazer Lesbian Archives will display an ALL LESBIAN PHOTOGRAPHER EXHIBIT which will open at The Mazer Lesbian Archives on Sunday, July 6, 2008. It is still a rarity to have such an exhibit anywhere. The exhibit includes several photographers who have been taking photos within the GLBT community in California for over thirty years including Cathy Cade, Pat Gargaetas, Denise Crippen Andersen as well as Jenny Wrenn, Karen Schmidt and Danna Kinsky. Also on display will be amazing new work by acclaimed photographer Laura Aguilar which will include her new short film (at the Opening on July 6th).
PLEASE JOIN US!

The photographers panel will be downstairs and exhibit will be upstairs in the Salon.
Parking meters are free on Sundays and there is 2 hour free parking in West Hollywood Park, on San Vicente between, Santa Monica and Melrose Blvd.

Here's our address!
626 N. Robertson Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(310) 659-2478

West Hollywood Dykes on Bikes at Christopher Street West LA PRIDE 2008

The year everybody met Provincetown , Cape Cod , Mass 1955

The Mazer Board and senior volunteers with Jean Conger 2008

From left to right:
Jeri, Margaret, Jamey, Marcia, Jean, Marilee, Ann, Wendy, Marsha & Angela

Our New Blog / Our New Poster

Welcome to our new blog! We promise to have new, fun and educational material added here every week for all to enjoy! Please return often!

Karen Kallmaker on youtube

Karen Kallmaker reads at the Stonewall Archives
just click on the link below to view!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxOKSK-lYjw

Great Contributions / Dedicated Lesbian Activists

Yolanda Retter and Barbara Gittings, UCLA 2006


Just click on the link below to see a tribute to Barbara Gittings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd_UJwbHq2Q

Video Interview about The Mazer on AfterEllen!

Just click on the link below to see the video of an interview with Mazer Board member Angela Brinskele -It's just past the halfway mark.

http://www.afterellen.com/blog/sarahwarn/you-cant-take-them-anywhere-in-magazine

View the ever changing slideshow and then scroll!

Photos Circa 1920s Paris, France

Lesbian Archives

You think that so much has changed over the years but then again, lesbians seem to have a timeless connection that is very clear and ever present regardless of the era. Hang out with us here and check out more about lesbians and their history.

We promise it will be a fascinating tour with plenty of fun and amazing visuals!

Lesbian Archives

Carolyn Gage as Joan of Arc

Carolyn Gage is a lesbian-feminist playwright, performer, director, and activist. The author of more than forty plays, musicals, and one-woman shows, she specializes in non-traditional roles for women, especially those reclaiming famous lesbians whose stories have been distorted or erased from history.
To know more about Carolyn and her work click on this link:
http://www.carolyngage.com/

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